'Openings for the tactically challenged'

If you want a quick fix, play the French (Rubinstein) and QGD as Black and some solid system as White (e.g. Torre). 

If you want a long term solution, start wheeling out the gambits. The Danish, Smith-Morra, Wing Gambit (Sicilian and French) and 3.Nc3 de4 4.Bc4 Caro-Kann will force you to play sharply and tactically, and this will improve your tactical vision. 

But don't keep playing these gambits. Drop them after a few tournaments or few hundred blitz games.

MartinC wrote on 07/29/10 at 13:59:18:

Yes, I am afraid. Fortunately I am blessed with an incredibly bad memory. I just looked up if a line started with 8...Ne6 or 9...Ne6. Within five seconds after putting the book back on the shelve I had to take it again ... forgotten.

Antillian wrote on 07/29/10 at 11:57:53:

I was going to point that out. I play "e6 against everything" as black, with a French/Dutch repertoire, which lets me avoid most of the anti-Dutch lines. 

ReneDescartes wrote on 07/28/10 at 14:52:07:


Point taken. Still, for non-masters I reckon that main thing is to have openings and variations that are based on fairly simple plans and direct means and that one feels comfortable with. The degree of updating required should also be taken into account and matched against the amount of time and energy available. For the most part one should play main line openings (since these are the best and they are also an investment for the future), but the choice of lines within those openings should be determined by the sort of game one enjoys and one's skill-level.

For over the board play, particularly at non-master level, I think that there are several problems with the recent spate of high-quality but mega-detailed repertoire books such as Avrukh's.

Firstly, there is simply too much to remember. It's impossible.

Secondly, for a human being, the effort of even trying to absorb so much material is counter-productive and leads to confusion rather than mastery. Admittedly, in modern times we have probably tended to underestimate the potential of the human memory but, even so, the time and effort could surely be spent more profitably. A human being is not a Rybka, for whom someone can just supply an “opening book”. Human effort is best spent at developing the aspects of chess skill that humans do best  and which can be developed by experience and practice: imagination, positional understanding, logic, pattern recognition, identifying candidate moves, calculating short variations effectively.

Thirdly, the types of edge that White gains by following (say) Avrukh's recommendations are often far too subtle for the non-master to be able to make effective use of, and require skills that most non-master players don't have (yet). Whenever I see a 1700 poring over a book such Avrukh's I am reminded of Lev Alburt's observation that up to a certain level, any opening line which relies on gaining the bishop pair for its edge is pretty pointless, since in fact it requires a certain (and quite high) skill level to exploit this, and for players who have not reached that level the knight can actually be a more effective piece. (there is room for argument as to where the threshold for that level actually lies).

A final observation. All human players are tactically incompetent, especially compared to computers. It's not what we do best. In fact it's our weakest point. We all mess up, even the greatest. After Biel 2007 (a tournament that he won!) Magnus Carlsen wrote “I lost two consecutive games through terrible calculation blunders. (…) Against Van Wely I missed Qh6(!) and continued with a whole chain of errors (…)”. More recently one could cite some of the games in the Dortmund event. Chess is more of a game of chance than we like to admit. 

We should also remind ourselves of all the games that we win from bad positions because the opponent messes up! Recently I rather undeservedly won a small prize (100 euros) with 5.5/9 in an international open – how? I played two GMs and one IM, had two completely winning positions but only scored half out of three (in one game I missed a forced win and then had to defend the ending of K+R+N v K+R for 50 moves of slow torture, playing on the increment). I scored 5 points against non-masters, but in two of the games I won I was in fact completely busted close to the time control, from previously very superior positions, but then my opponents kindly gifted me the point with huge blunders! ***The openings had very little to do with the outcomes.*** 

Conclusion: we should all spend less time on opening study and more time on training. We should keep practising the basic chess skills, and in particular make sure the “chess muscles” are warmed up before each game, to give ourselves the best chance. And we should not beat ourselves up too much when we make mistakes. That's the nature of the beast we call chess.

Derudea,

Lot's of good sugestions so far.  But you want to keep playing the QGD exchange and the minority attack, so let's stick with that.  I assume you're playing 1.d4 2.c4 3.Nc3.  Here are some solid lines that still give White a chance to press:

Tarrasch -- Avoid the main lines with 6.Bg5!  This typically leads to an equal position where White has chances to press Black.  The goal is a position where the dark Bishops come off and the center pawns are locked on d4 d5.  That means that White's light squared Bishop can attack Black's d5 pawn, but Black's light squared bishop can't do the same to White's d4 pawn.  

Triangle 3..c6 -- Play 4.e3 and head for a Semi-Slav.  If 4..f5, play a set-up with Bd3, Nge2, Qc2, f3, 0-0 with a strong position.

Slav -- Play the Exchange.  Go for the main line with 6.Bf4 Bf5 7.e3 e6 8.Bb5 Nd7 and now 9.Qa5 or Markovich's favorite 9.Qb3.  

Semi-Slav -- Play the Meran, but avoid the sharp lines with 6.Qc2, b3, Be2, Bb7, 0-0.    

Baltic 2..Bf5 -- Again skip the adventures and play 3.Nc3 e6 4.Nf3.  Develop your pieces and if you get a chance play Nh4 and win the two bishops.

QGA -- Play a blast from the past, the good old Mannheim: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Qa4+ or, if you're worried about Back's third move alternatives, 3.Qa4+.  Aim for play down the c-file.  

Chigorin and Marshall -- Sorry, here you're on your own.

Albin, Benko, and Budapest -- Run don't walk to get a copy of Squeezing the Gambits.  It's brilliant and just what you're after.  

Benoni and KID -- A two for one special.  You can play the Bg5 Saemisch vs both.  See games of Sadler, Lautier, Jussupow, and Dreev.   

Gruenfeld -- Try the Closed 4.Nf3, 5.e3.  Thought there was a good write up in one of Jussupow's new books.   

Nimzo -- If you have something you like, you should stick to it, as I can't think of anything like a safe line.  You could consider 4.e3 and 5.Nge2 against pretty much everything.  Look for solid sidelines that avoid the heavy theory.  

Dutch -- Skip the main lines and play 2.Nc3.  The main line runs 2..Nf6 3.Bg5 d5 4.Bxf6 exf6 5.e3 Be6/c6 6.Bd3.  And if 3..e6, then 4.e4.

Hope this helps!
LeeRoth

 

      

Excellent comments by the last four posters. I'm sure BPaulsen wasn't the only one thinking 'Could have been me writing that'.

I think there's another reason for the force of these comments, which might be described as a sort of paradox. The more one strives for positional/strategic play, hoping to defeat the opponent by abstract 'ideas' so to speak, without the need for too much concrete calculation, the more one is likely to find oneself in positions of a more technical nature at some stage of the game -- and then find that these technical positions (typically but not necessarily endings) require ... calculation!

This isn't to say that players of a more positional or strategic bent shouldn't play to their strengths in choosing their repertoires -- far from it. But it is another indication that it's best not to get too one-sided or neglect (as I rather have!) tactical vision/training. I think too that, for players under master strength anyway, it's best to choose openings which, however positionally/strategically oriented, do contain opportunities for [i]some[/i] dynamic and aggressive play, and (to put the same thing another way) to be not just ready but also [i]eager[/i] to interpret a 'strategic' opening system actively and dynamically when the position calls for it.

Seth_Xoma wrote on 07/26/10 at 22:49:23:


Sounds like I could've written it.

**********

@derdudea

You have to do what it takes to win. There's no harm in trying to trying to play for positional grinds, but you're going to run into problems if you're trying to avoid tactical complications all the time.

At some point you're going to get opponents that do unsound things that require purely tactical refutations, or else you simply risk losing. This is especially true when you build up a positionally winning position and your opponent will try to swindle his way out.

Honestly, I don't think avoiding tactics and calculating variations will do you any good.  It's impossible and will probably lose you more games.

It's common to think that players such as Petrosian avoiding tactics and calculating, but generally they are extremely good as this (better than many "attacking players").  Don't get too attached to your stereotypes.

A recent high profile case of chess blindness has been Mamedyarov at Dortmund (see http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6535).  Not to mention Kramnik's blunder into mate in one in the match against the computer (while world champion) not to mention his loss from a winning position in the decisive game in the match against Shirov in 1998.

I could go on and on - the best players in the world make plenty of mistakes in tactics and calculating pretty much every game, so don't think you are anything special!

Remember: "The hardest game to win is a won game."